


Confluence

by aghamora



Category: Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27677555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: “What would Nobu have done if he had been the one to find me that day at the Shirakawa Stream? Surely he would have walked right past… and how much easier it might have been for me if he had.”An encounter with a different man that day radically alters the trajectory of Sayuri’s life.
Relationships: Nitta Sayuri/Nobu Toshikazu
Comments: 22
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic in 2015 and it’s been sitting for years and years, but I’ve finally gotten back into the novel/movie and become interested in finishing it. I’m a lot less comfortable with many aspects of the story than I was back then, and so I thought it would be interesting to write a slightly more feminist path for Sayuri, at least as much as the historical setting allows. The novel also views the geisha customs through a relatively rosy lens, and I wanted to explore a side of it all that wasn’t quite so rosy.
> 
> This is very much still a work in progress, and I can’t promise regular updates, but I wanted to get a start on getting it out so I have more motivation to finish it. 
> 
> The quote in the fic description comes from the novel itself. Memoirs of a Geisha and its characters are the intellectual property of Arthur Golden. I own nothing.

My tears were so filled with tears that I could scarcely see where I was headed as I turned off Shijo Avenue and hurried down a side street, feeling about as significant as an ant on the ground. I’d been on the receiving end of Hatsumomo’s cruelty so often that I had thought myself numbed to it, but her words at the little school had thrown the hopelessness of my situation in my face, and I found that I couldn’t contain my sorrow. 

All around me, life went on, with men and women walking from place to place with purpose, while I stumbled down a path that seemed to lead nowhere. Was it really true that I would end up like Auntie, having been a maid for my entire life with no hope of ever bettering my circumstances? It seemed so bleak a prospect. Yet at least for a time in her youth Auntie had been a geisha, and now, I would never experience even that.

I was so distraught as I crossed the little bridge over the stream that I wasn’t watching at all where I was going, and suddenly, I felt myself colliding with someone walking in the opposite direction. My vision was too cloudy to see anything more than several dark, fuzzy shapes around me, but the person stopped in their tracks the instant I hit them and gave an irritated _ humph _ .

“For heaven’s sake, get out of my way, girl!” a man’s voice barked.

Startled, I blinked the tears out of my eyes and glanced upwards, only to find a man no more than forty years old in a brown, Western-style business suit standing before me with a deep scowl. However, I hardly even noticed his frown, because I was so shocked and horrified by his face, one side of which was covered with scars from what I could only assume was a terrible burn he’d suffered at some point in his life. From where I stood, he looked as though he were a giant, his features like hideous, clumpy melted wax. When I glanced down at his side, I found that the left arm of his jacket was empty and pinned at the shoulder, the limb missing. 

I’d never seen anyone so horribly disfigured before, and the sight of this monstrous-looking man, coupled with his harsh words to me, finally made the tears break free from my eyes. I let out a sob before I could help myself and hurried away from him as fast as my legs could carry me, afraid that he meant to pick me up and wring my neck.

“Oh, Nobu-san, look what you’ve done,” a geisha nearby, who I could only assume was accompanying the man, chided. “You’ve made the poor thing cry.”

By then I had made my way across the bridge and stumbled over to a little stone bench beside the stream, with my head bowed and my cheeks burning hot with shame. The man and the geisha accompanying him stopped only a few feet away, and I heard him exhale in frustration, as if she had made him feel guilty for speaking so rudely to me.

“Wait here a minute,” he grumbled, and when I looked up, I was terrified to see that he was walking back over to me. I had to fight the urge to run away, as I certainly didn’t want to see or speak to him again, but something kept me frozen right where I was, pinned down like a little bug.

He stopped in front of me, but I didn’t dare look at him, and again, he blew an angry breath out of his mouth. 

“Look, I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you, but there's no need to cry about it.”

His words made me feel no better; if anything, they only frightened me more. The man seemed to realize this, and, to my horror, took a seat beside me, as though he did genuinely intend to apologize. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t simply hurried along after pushing me out of his way, and I was so surprised that I glanced his way briefly, before lowering my eyes once more. He was awful to look at, and so gruff that I felt certain I had never seen a more mean-looking man in my life.

“Look at me, girl,” he said, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. At that, he scoffed. “I suppose I don’t blame you for crying. Children have a habit of crying whenever they see me.”

Upon hearing that, I felt almost sorry for him, and so, trembling, I finally made myself look over at him, albeit with great trepidation. Perhaps other men would have smiled or made a funny face to console a crying child, yet he did nothing except stare back at me with the same stern look on his face. My tears dried bit by bit, and I peered at him curiously, intrigued by this man who had stopped to make an attempt at consoling me when perhaps anyone else would have simply carried on.

“There,” he remarked. “Few people have good things to say about me, but I won’t have it be said that I make children cry. Do you know what it is the geisha around here call me?” I shook my head, and he made a sort of huffing sound. “They’ve taken to calling me ‘Mr. Lizard’ behind my back. After today I’d suppose you think it’s a very apt nickname too.”

“No, sir,” I spoke up suddenly, for indeed the nickname struck me as particularly cruel. In that instant I felt almost a strange kinship with this man I had heard the geisha call Nobu, as it seemed the world had been as unkind to him as it had been to me. Even more, perhaps.

He looked at me for a long while, then asked, “What is your name, girl?”

“Chiyo, sir,” I answered.

“Where is it that you live? In one of these okiya around here?”

“Yes, sir. The Nitta okiya.”

“What, are they training you to be a geisha too?”

“Yes, sir… well, they were,” I told him with a sniffle as I wiped at my eyes.

“That’s no kind of life for a child,” he said with contempt. “Raised to pour sake and be sold like cattle! It’s disgusting.”

I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but I was too stunned to say anything, as I’d never known anyone who believed that geisha were anything less than perfectly enchanting creatures. Indeed, this man Nobu seemed almost to despise them, and I could do nothing but gape at him in surprise as he got to his feet and reached into his pocket. From there, he retrieved a handkerchief and dropped it unceremoniously into my lap. 

“Here. Dry your eyes.” He stopped to think for a moment, then inquired again, “Where was it you said you lived, girl?”

“The Nitta okiya, sir,” I answered, pressing the little piece of fabric to my damp cheeks. 

He nodded, before looking me square in the eyes. “Next time, watch where you’re going.”

With that, he turned and stalked away with the geisha at his side, disappearing into the crowd of people around him. Even the way he plodded along down the street was brusque, and I watched him go with surprise as well as an equally pervasive feeling of relief. It was true that he’d spoken curtly to me, but a truly cruel man wouldn’t have stopped and given me anything more than a passing glance. I was left unsure what to make of it all. 

His kindness had been cold, but it had been kindness all the same. As I sat there, I turned the linen handkerchief he’d given me over in my hands, the only thing I had left to remember the strange encounter. The little thing was crisp and white, without any initials embroidered onto it or other embellishments. In a way, I decided it suited the man Nobu well.

His harsh sort of kindness was the first kindness I had been shown in months, and though I felt chastised by his words as I began the walk back to the okiya, I felt optimistic as well, as if his cold kindness had planted the tiniest seed of hope inside me.

-

Things went on as usual for a month after that day, though I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering to my strange encounter with the man Nobu. It crossed my mind often, leaving me perplexed and a bit uneasy, but as the days passed, I began to think of it less and less, and it faded from my memory. It had only been brief. Nothing would ever come of it, yet still I couldn’t help but feel bizarre whenever I recalled it, for reasons I couldn’t quite identify. 

Then, one afternoon in the beginning of May, one of the elderly maids told me that Mother wanted me downstairs in the reception room and that I’d better hurry. It struck me as odd that she needed me urgently when I was of such little consequence to her anymore, but I obeyed nonetheless and descended the stairs. 

I found Mother kneeling at the small table in the reception room, puffing on her pipe and releasing each trail of smoke out through her mouth like some sort of hideous dragon. She frowned when she saw me enter, however, and plucked the pipe from her mouth, peering over at me with her red-rimmed eyes.

“Pack your things, girl,” she ordered suddenly. “You’re leaving this okiya.”

A spike of panic pierced through me. “Ma’am?” 

Mother exhaled and got to her feet, folding her arms and making her way over to me. She had a look on her face that I couldn’t read, but all my bewilderment vanished when she reached out and grabbed ahold of my earlobe, yanking me close to her.

“I had a little visit from Mameha this morning. She said she’s in need of a new maid and wants you to enter her service. She even said she’d be willing to take on your debts for you! What’ve you done, girl? Are you two scheming together?”

The geisha Mameha wanted me to be her maid… I was so shocked and confused by the idea that I went rigid for a moment, and my mouth fell agape. I had no idea why she would want me of all people, when I’d destroyed that beautiful kimono of hers, and I wondered for a moment if this was her way of exacting revenge on me.

“I-I’ve done no scheming, ma’am, I promise-”

“Mameha’s up to something. I don’t know what it is, but I suppose I ought to be grateful she’s willing to take a worthless girl like you off of my hands – and for a price. Certainly she’ll pay more for you than any  _ jorou-ya _ would!” Mother barked a laugh and released me. The smile fell from her face and her lips returned to their typical puckered state, like a sinkhole collapsing the ground beneath it. “Pack your things. You’re to be gone by nightfall, do you understand?”

I nodded with a gulp, struggling to come to terms with this sudden news, and stepped out into the hallway, only to find that Hatsumomo had been standing there, listening to our conversation the whole time and lingering in the shadows like the demon she was. She was clad only in a thin cotton robe, with her hair freshly washed and hanging loosely around her shoulders, and she was eyeing me triumphantly, like a predator looking at its injured prey, knowing that it had won. 

“Well little Chiyo,” she cooed. “So I’m to be rid of you at last, and I didn’t even have to lift a finger! I suppose I ought to thank Mameha-san for her generosity.”

I bowed to acknowledge I’d heard her and tried to walk past her, but she stepped in my way. 

“It’s perfect for you, really. You’ll never be a geisha; you’ll be Mameha’s little maid, following her around, watching her live her perfect little life, and all you’ll ever be is a miserable servant.”

I swallowed the lump rising in my throat, determined not to let Hatsumomo see me cry, and made my way past her, down the stairs and back into the servant’s quarters. My mind was racing, every hair on my arms standing on end, and a shiver ran through me as I considered the reality of my situation. I was leaving the okiya, and though I should have been happy to escape Hatsumomo and Mother, all I could think was how terribly afraid I was. 

Why did Mameha want me of all people for her maid? Why would she be willing to go to so much trouble to get me away from the okiya, not to mention the expense taking on my debts would be for her? At that point I had never met anyone in Gion – or in the entire world – willing to do anything out of the kindness of their heart; some favor was always expected in return, and certainly Mameha was no different. I had so many questions but no one to ask, and so I resolved to pack my things just as Mother had ordered and ready myself to leave.

Packing was easy, as I had hardly any possessions at all. I took with me the mortuary tablets Mr. Tanaka had sent after the death of my parents, as well as the handkerchief the man Nobu had left with me, in a little burlap sack one of the maids provided me. I went to Auntie once I had finished and told her I was ready to depart. She escorted me to the entryway, pausing just before opening the gates and glancing down at me with a peculiar look in her eyes, as if she was thinking something she didn’t quite know how to say aloud to me.

“There you are, little Chiyo,” she told me finally, and, with great effort because of her hip, bent down to my level. “Off you go. You will do something great one day, I can see it in those eyes of yours. There is water in you, yes, but there is also steel in your spine,” she motioned to my back, and then pointed between my ribs, “and iron in your heart. You wouldn’t have survived your trials thus far if there weren’t.”

“But Auntie,” I protested glumly, “I will never be a geisha now.”

To me, it seemed the only measure of greatness was to become a successful geisha; if I was not a geisha, I was nothing. Having only known the tiny worlds of Yoroido and then Gion, I had no idea there existed any society beyond them. It seemed incomprehensible to me.

Auntie gave me a sad sort of smile. “Perhaps there are other ways to do great things in this world, dear girl.”

No one bothered to offer me any further goodbyes – not Pumpkin or Mother, certainly not Hatsumomo, and not even the other maids. When the gates of the okiya slammed shut behind me and I stood alone in the alley, I felt so very lost, like a fishing boat that has slipped its moorings, a discarded piece of squid from a street vendor gathering flies. It was true my life at the okiya was miserable, but it was at least a predictable kind of misery. I had no idea what Mameha wanted with me, if she wanted me as her maid only to torment me for ruining her kimono, for I had known cruelty after cruelty for so long that I no longer truly believed there existed anything else in the world.

But then I remembered the man Nobu and his handkerchief, that strange encounter that both disconcerted and comforted me. I pulled it out of my sack to unfold it, staring down at the plain white linen for a long moment as the spring breeze whipped and whistled around the buildings. If he had been kind to me, however gruffly, then surely out there somewhere in the world, there was more kindness to be found. There was a chance for something better.

Perhaps it was not my destiny to be a geisha. Perhaps it was my destiny to be something more.


	2. Chapter 2

At first I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find the way to Mameha’s apartment on my own, as no one had been sent to escort me there, but it seemed that my feet remembered the way without any help from me. I crossed a bridge and followed the stream, turning down a snaking, dim alleyway and coming to a stop before a familiar flight of stairs, which ended at an all too familiar doorway. It took me no time at all to know I was at the right door, because I remembered the last time I was here with perfect clarity, holding Mameha’s soiled kimono in my arms with the sinister echoes of Hatsumomo and Korin’s laughter drifting up from the street.

Perhaps, I thought, I was walking into a life no better than the one at the okiya – still a lowly maid, only with Mameha torturing me for her amusement instead of Hatsumomo. It wasn’t as if I had much of a choice even if that was to be the case. I had no money, no family, not even a single person in the world to call a friend. I couldn’t run away now even if I wanted to, and so I summoned all my courage, opening my mouth to make my presence known to the people on the other side of the door.

“Excuse me!” I cried once, clutching my little burlap sack in my hands as if it were as precious as gold, the last few pieces of my identity.

“One moment!” a voice answered, and before I could so much as blink, the door slid open to reveal Mameha’s maid on the other side; the same one that had accompanied Mameha to the okiya after Grannie’s death. After I removed my shoes, she guided me into the doorway and called out, “Chiyo is here, ma’am!”

“Thank you, Tatsumi,” a voice in the back room called in reply, as gentle as the pitter patter of rain.

The maid Tatsumi left me in the entryway to resume whatever task she had been doing before, which gave me an opportunity to take in my surroundings. Mameha’s apartment was certainly much smaller than the okiya, but smelled of new tatami and freshly-brewed ginseng. It was gigantic compared to the size of a typical Gion apartment, with three rooms in total that I could see, including the large main room in which I stood. Every inch of it dripped with elegance, and I felt so filthy and out of place that I longed for nothing more than to fade into the walls around me.

A few minutes passed before one of the other doors slid open, and this time out stepped the geisha Mameha herself.

I had seen her before when she came to visit the okiya, yet somehow she looked different, resplendent in a kimono made of mint green and pale rose silk. She seemed almost to glow against the beige background of tatami, the colors as neutral and serene as a painted landscape on a  _ shoji  _ screen. Her perfect oval face wasn’t painted or made up, and on that face I could spot no resentment, not even a ghost of anger. Instead, her eyes were remarkably kind. I bowed deeply, and she gestured over at a small table near the window, where there were two steaming teacups waiting on little china plates.

“Come, Chiyo,” she said. “I’ve had Tatsumi prepare us some tea.”

We knelt across from each other, and again I had the sense of how horribly out of place I was, drinking tea with Mameha as if I was her equal when I was nothing more than a servant girl hardly worth a second glance. I was so accustomed to cruelty that I almost expected this to be some sort of joke, for Mameha to throw the hot tea in my face and laugh at the idea that I’d ever be someone who was served tea. For all I knew, I would only ever be the one doing the serving.

But she did nothing of the sort, and instead just glanced over at me after taking a sip of tea, her fingers daintily cradling the cup.

“I’m sure your Mother told you that I’ve decided to take you on as my maid. I’m in need of a new one, after my last, Okaichi, left my service. I thought you would make a fine replacement.” That just confused me more, and I must not have hidden the look on my face well enough, as Mameha noticed. “You’re unsure why I chose you, especially considering the considerable debt you came with. Well, you will work it off in my service over the years, make no mistake. But I know all too well how it is to deal with Hatsumomo; I imagine living with her must have been miserable indeed. You were like a mouse in the jaw of a snake about to be swallowed up.”

“I don’t suppose anyone in the okiya ever told you the story of poor Hatsuoki, did they?” she asked me. I shook my head. “She and Hatsumomo were sisters, trained together under the great geisha Tomihatsu. Hatsuoki was a dear friend of mine, in fact. But Hatsumomo has never been able to tolerate having a rival, certainly not when she was still early in her career trying to establish her place in Gion. So Hatsumomo made up her mind to rid herself of Hatsuoki by spreading a vicious rumor about her and a policeman doing something improper in an alleyway one night. 

“She’s no fool; she went about it cleverly. She would seek out anyone who was drunk in Gion – maids, or other geisha, even men – and pass the rumor along, so that the next day whoever she’d told recalled the rumor but forgot she was the source. Soon enough, Hatsuoki’s reputation was ruined. Her clients no longer asked for her company. A number of teahouses even refused to invite her to parties. By then it was easy for Hatsumomo to drive her out of Gion completely with a few more tricks.”

“So,” she sighed wistfully, peering down into her tea. “I suppose I took you on because of guilt. Because I could not save my friend then, but I can save you now.” 

Could all this really be true? I couldn’t imagine anyone would go to so much trouble for a servant girl of no station, but with Mameha sitting there looking at me with genuine kindness, perhaps it was so.

There was a long pause. I still didn’t dare speak, so Mameha asked me a question and forced me to do so. 

“Why is it that you left the little school, Chiyo? I was told by the teachers you were doing a fine job before you stopped attending.” I was too ashamed to answer her, and when I lowered my eyes, she seemed to understand. “You tried to run away, didn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Though that must seem like an unfair punishment to you now, you must understand the shame a maid trying to escape brings to an okiya. It disgraces the mistress of the okiya. It makes her seem as if she can’t control her own servants, and if she can’t be trusted to do that, how can she be expected to control the geisha in her care either? I trust,” she continued with a note of warning in her voice, “that you will not attempt that again in my service.”

“No, ma’am,” I replied. “I… Truthfully, I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Your parents?”

“They died,” I told her softly, my throat tightening at the memory of my tipsy little house on the sea cliffs. I wondered if the ocean had washed it away, by now, with all of us gone. “My sister ran away without me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said solemnly. “You seem like an intelligent girl, Chiyo, I noticed that the first time I saw you at the okiya. Certainly too clever to spend the rest of your days as a mere maid.” I wasn’t sure why Mameha was telling me this, and when she rose to stand, floating over to the window, I followed. After a moment, she looked down at me, and I was mesmerized by the angelic softness of her features. “You will attend me as my maid in the evenings. But during the day, you’ll attend lessons with a client of mine, Dr. Arimoto, a former professor at Kyoto University.”

“Lessons, ma’am?” I asked, bewildered. “To become a geisha?”

She seemed amused by that. “No. Lessons in history. Literature. Arithmetic. Perhaps he’ll even teach you English, I believe he speaks it quite well.”

I hadn’t the faintest clue what to make of any of this. I had never learned about any of these topics in my life, and certainly I never expected to as a lowly maid. I had only attended the school in Yoroido for a short time, too short a time to learn very much beyond rudimentary reading and writing. Auntie had given Pumpkin and I daily lessons in reading and writing at the okiya as well, but nothing beyond that, because geisha were expected to be educated, of course, but only in dance and the arts – not in academics. Nowadays, I can’t help but ponder how foolish this is; how can you expect geisha to carry on an intelligent conversation with the sophisticated men they entertain if they’re tragically uneducated?

Once more, I was dumbfounded, and I furrowed my brow. “Please forgive me, ma’am, but I don’t understand. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why am I to attend those sorts of lessons? Girls here only attend lessons at the little school.”

“I see no reason for you to remain uneducated, even as a maid. Are you saying you’ve no interest in these kinds of lessons?” I bowed and begged her forgiveness, trembling slightly, and when I did, her demeanor softened with something akin to pity. “I am not the cruel mistress Hatsumomo is, Chiyo. You’ve no need to regard me as a tiger in search of its next meal.”

“Ma’am,” I began, eyes lowered. “About your kimono…”

“You may apologize if you wish.”

I threw myself onto the ground into a clumsy bow at her feet, and she clicked her tongue in way of a reprimand, kneeling down to adjust my hands, head, and arms until she was satisfied with my posture. Once she was, she beckoned me to rise up off the mats and gave a sigh, as if recalling the beauty of the kimono just as I was.

“It was a beautiful kimono, wasn’t it? But I’m no fool, Chiyo. I know you wouldn’t have come up with that idea on your own. Like I said, Hatsumomo can’t stand having rivals, and especially not in her own okiya. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did it in the hopes that it would get you beaten until you were so miserable you decided to run away.”

I was so overwhelmed by the events of the day that I could think of nothing to say, and for a moment I simply stood there, dazed. Finally, I bowed to Mameha once more, as gracefully as I could manage this time, and murmured something about being thankful for her kindness, and how little I deserved it.

“We women are shown far too little kindness in this world,” was all she said. “Perhaps it would do us well to remember to show each other some, from time to time.”

Tatsumi showed me to the maids’ room after we had both finished our tea and left me there for a moment to unpack my belongings. The room doubled as a dressing room for Mameha before she went to entertain in the evenings, and I tucked the mortuary tablets into a little corner where Tatsumi told me we would position a futon for me to sleep on later that night. Of course, this would only be after Mameha had returned from her engagements, because the most junior maid is always expected to remain awake to receive the geisha of the house. I had done it countless nights for Hatsumomo, often waiting up into the small hours of the morning, only for her to return too drunk to see straight or even realize that I was there at all.

I kept my only other belonging – Nobu’s handkerchief – tucked in my kimono. I wasn’t entirely certain why, only that it felt right to cling to the memory of his kindness, that one tiny ray of light when my world had been at its darkest.

The world had been as cruel to him as it had been to me, yet now, as I took in the sight of my new home, I had the sense somehow that there was no more cruelty to come. I could only hope that wherever he was, the world would show him the same kindness.

-

The next day, I had my first lesson with Dr. Arimoto.

Tatsumi escorted me to the Gion Shrine just as midday was approaching and led me over to a small stone bench a few hundred yards away from it underneath a willow tree, where a man was sitting. He was short and hunched over, with snow white hair, a closely-trimmed beard, and glasses that seemed to be on the brim of sliding right off his skinny nose. He looked about the age my father might have been if he were still alive, and that fact alone was enough to kindle a fondness inside me for him before we’d even said a single word to one another. 

Tatsumi introduced me, and once she had, he patted the spot on the bench beside him, gesturing for me to sit, which I did. The corners of his eyelids wrinkled when he smiled, his eyes like two warm half-moons. I thought to myself that he had the look of an owl, full of silent but profound wisdom.

“Now then, little Chiyo,” he began, and his voice was as soothing as cold water running over a burn. “Tell me about your schooling thus far. Can you read and write?”

“A little. I didn’t go to the school in my village very long. Auntie in my okiya gave us reading and writing lessons everyday.” I thought for a moment, then peered up at him. “My father said my sister and I didn’t need to go to school.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re girls,” I said, as if it were obvious. “The girls here in Gion only go to the little school to learn to be geisha.”

“And is that what you would prefer? Instead of dull lessons with me?”

It seemed like a jest, but it made me think. If I had been asked that question a month or two ago, perhaps my answer would have been different, but now my world had been turned upside down, and I no longer knew what I wanted at all.

“I’m not certain, sir,” I told him, and he chuckled at my honesty.

“You probably didn’t question your father when he told you that girls don’t need to go to school. But that is the very essence of education: learning to question the world around you. During our lessons together, I want you to question everything, especially things you don’t understand. Question the leaves on the trees, the water in the stream. Even question me.”

I was astounded. This man was so intelligent, certainly far beyond the questioning of a maid. “Even  _ you _ ?”

This was an entirely foreign idea to me. I didn’t know it at the time, but as a young university student Dr. Arimoto had been something of a political dissident, working with an underground organization that printed pamphlets criticizing the government and promoting all sorts of radical ideas. This was illegal at the time, and if it weren’t for his well-established and powerful family, descended from the aristocracy, he might well have spent half his life locked away in a prison cell. Thankfully, he didn’t, and after being released he went on to have a long and storied career as an academic. Even though I had no idea about any of this at the time, I was still able to tell as I sat before him that I was in the presence of someone well worth listening to.

“Even me,” he affirmed. “As for the matter of girls not attending school – well, there were female samurai, do you know that? We’ve had empresses. Some girls even go on to attend university. If your eyes can read the same words as mine, little Chiyo, I believe the depth of your ability to learn is no different.”

I mulled this over for a moment, then said, “Mameha-san said you would teach me English.”

“Would you like to learn?”

I nodded with the first genuine smile I’d smiled in what felt like an eternity. “Yes.”

“You have a natural curiosity about the world, I see it in your eyes. And that,” he said with a decisive raise of his chin, “is the most important quality a pupil can have. Let’s get started, shall we?”

Our lesson continued on for a while longer, and with every word I could feel my tiny world expanding, in the same way rays of light creep across the curve of the earth at sunrise. I had viewed my predicament as a maid as a prison for so long that I had never considered there might exist an escape without escaping, in books, history, languages. The places where English was spoken, that far-off fabled land of the United States… suddenly they all felt startlingly within my grasp. 

I had no idea where my ultimate destination would be, but for the first time since Mother had halted my schooling, I finally had the sense that I was headed somewhere. It felt like opening the windows in a home for the first time after a long winter and finally gulping a breath of fresh air into my lungs.


	3. Chapter 3

Life as Mameha’s maid quickly proved to be a relatively quiet, peaceful existence.

I no longer had to glance constantly over my shoulder for fear I would find Hatsumomo there, ready to grab me by the ear and subject me to her cruel whims. I no longer lived in fear of being beaten with a rod should I look at someone the wrong way, or say the wrong thing, or be unfortunate enough to end up in the path of Mother on the wrong day at the wrong time. Mameha was an extraordinarily kind mistress on the whole, and though she was firm, she was never unreasonable or quick to anger. I still lived the rather tedious life of a maid, but I had one blessed escape from the drudgery: my lessons with Dr. Arimoto.

Our lessons consisted of arithmetic and history, and at first basic reading and writing, as he discovered quickly that my education at the school in Yoriodo and the lessons at the okiya with Auntie had been sorely lacking. Then, we moved on to English and more advanced literature, and I sopped up every word in the books Dr. Arimoto lent me from his collection like a sponge absorbing water. He remarked often that he was surprised by my reading ability and voraciousness.

As the months went on and turned into a year, then two, I never wanted for knowledge, as Dr. Arimoto filled my mind with so much of it that at times I felt as if I would overflow. I spent my nights while I waited for Mameha to return from the teahouses reciting arithmetic in my head and tracing imaginary calligraphy across the tatami mats.

I couldn’t quite say whether I was happy or unhappy, although I supposed I should consider anything better than the misery I’d endured in the okiya happiness. There were still so many nights I laid awake dreaming up scenarios in which I’d managed to escape Gion with Satsu and returned to find our parents somehow still alive in our tiny house in Yoriodo. Whenever he sensed my discontent, as he proved very good at doing, Dr. Arimoto advised me that I must find my own ways to be satisfied with the life I was lucky enough to be given.

I was hurrying back from my lessons one day, however, when I was dealt an exceptionally unfortunate hand by life.

I was so excited for the reading Dr. Arimoto had given me that I didn’t bother to take much time looking at the people I passed, except to make sure I didn’t run into any of them - something I still did out of habit, after my encounter with the man Nobu years earlier. It was early spring, the world coming alive as winter released its grasp on the world, and I cherished every moment of fresh air outside of Mameha’s apartment I was permitted.

The ground was damp from recent rain and the cobblestones were dotted with puddles, which I would tread through every now and then just to watch my shoes create ripples. I felt as free as a bird with the wind at my back, my book tucked tightly underneath my arm - until, that is, I rounded a corner and found myself in front of none other than Hatsumomo.

I had been fairly successful in avoiding Hatsumomo in the two years since I’d left the Nitta Okiya, as I was familiar enough with her routine to stay out of her way for the most part, though Gion was small and I could never manage it entirely. We still saw each other in passing in shops and at the teahouses, whenever she and Mameha ended up at the same party. She would never fail to make a snide comment when she noticed my presence, but by and large, we’d remained in separate orbits until now. 

However, she was standing there now in a kimono as red as blood with two other geisha by her side I didn’t recognize, and I’d never seen her look more pleased than when she realized just who had stumbled right into her clutches, like an unsuspecting gnat finding itself tangled in the spiders’ web.

“Well, well, well,” she cooed in that sickeningly-sweet voice of hers. Sweet enough to attract flies, I thought to myself, like rotten fruit. “Chiyo-chan! And to think I’d been worried you were avoiding me because you didn’t like me anymore.” She took a step forward and grasped a lock of my hair between her fingers, eyeing me closely. “Haven’t you grown up. Still as gangly as a stringbean, but-” She paused and shrugged back at her friends. “One day you’ll be just the _loveliest_ fisherman’s wife in all Kyoto, won’t she?”

The other geisha snickered in agreement, and I bowed my head, forced to accept the thinly-veiled insult as a compliment.

In truth, Hatsumomo wouldn’t have remarked on my appearance if she didn’t actually notice a change. I knew she must because Mameha and Tatsumi had both made similar comments in the last few months, as I grew into a woman’s body and shed my old, childish skin. My face had grown more slender as of late, my cheekbones more pronounced and elegant. I noticed delivery boys and workmen taking notice of me on the street when I’d never gotten so much as a second glance before. When I mentioned this to Tatsumi, she just laughed and told me I was like a cherry blossom bursting into full bloom; of course I would be noticed.

“How is it being Miss Prissy’s maid, hm?” she goaded. “I’d hope every now and then you get a good lashing for destroying her precious kimono.”

I remained silent, wishing very much that I could turn into a leaf and blow away on the wind, and kept my eyes lowered.

Just then, Hatsumomo took notice of the book tucked beneath my arm. “What is that?”

“A book, ma’am.”

“I know it’s a book, do you think I’m stupid? Give it to me.” I couldn’t very well disobey her, so I did as she said. Hatsumomo opened it and flipped through the pages, scoffing after a moment. “What is a foolish country girl like you doing reading history? Are you a scholar now, Chiyo-chan? I bet you can’t even understand what this says.”

“I can,” I replied, though perhaps it would have been smarter to remain silent. “I have a tutor.”

Hatsumomo’s face went through a pirouette of expressions right then; from shock to disbelief, then to anger with a flash of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It looked almost akin to jealousy, though I knew there was no way Hatsumomo could ever be jealous of someone she considered so inconsequential. But the expression was there and gone as quickly as it had come, and she made a peculiar little humming sound with her mouth as if pondering exactly what to do to torment me next.

Finally, she settled on closing the book and holding it out of my reach. “Well then. I’m sure that tutor of yours will have more where this came from.”

“Hatsumomo-san, please-”

I took a step forward, but she snapped it up against her chest before I could grab the book and spun out of my reach. I tried to take a step forward to follow her when suddenly I felt my foot catch against something, and before I knew it I was tumbling face-first into a dirty puddle on the street. I looked up, only to find that one of the other geisha had tripped me, and all three of them now stood over me, laughing.

It was only then that Hatsumomo stepped forward again and threw my book down into the puddle next to me, soaking the pages before I could reach out to save it. Our eyes met, and I saw for one brief moment the hideous interior lurking behind her beautiful face, as demonic as the  _ oni _ I’d read about.

“Well then, little Chiyo,” she cooed. “Happy reading.”

I waited until they had disappeared down Shijo Avenue to stand up again and collect myself. I wasn’t bleeding anywhere that I could tell, thankfully, but my chin was scraped and my precious book ruined. I felt my eyes well up with tears for the book more than for myself, because I imagined Dr. Arimoto would be unhappy with me for ruining one of his possessions, and I was grateful when the clouds above began to give up the burden of their rain, for it concealed my sorrow from the world. 

I was fourteen anyway, no longer a child and too old to be seen crying in the street. So, with a sigh, I started back towards Mameha’s apartment, and by the time I arrived my kimono was dripping wet, and my tabi socks were soaked through.

Tatsumi chided me when she opened the door and ushered me inside quickly. “You’re late. The Baron is here. Hush.”

I felt foolish, but in my misery, I’d forgotten the Baron was visiting Mameha this afternoon. The visit of a  _ danna _ is always an occasion any maid would prepare most thoroughly for, but the Baron only visited once every few months, as business kept him in Tokyo most of the time, and of course, the Baron was a very important man regardless. I always dreaded his visits, in truth, for he always looked at me far too close and let his eyes linger in places they shouldn’t.

I lowered my head and hurried with Tatsumi into the maid’s room, past where the Baron and Mameha were seated at the table having lunch in the main room. Fortunately, neither one of them seemed to notice me, and Tatsumi dried me off with a towel while I changed into a fresh kimono and dabbed at the scrape on my chin with a bit of ointment. We slid open the doors once I was done and knelt there, waiting for either Mameha or the Baron to call for us if we were needed.

Tatsumi had only just disappeared into the next room while clearing the lunch plates away when I noticed the Baron drain the last of his tea, and so reluctantly, I rose to stand with the teapot in my hand. I knelt beside him to fill his cup, and as I’d expected, his eyes went to me instantly. I could feel him watching me so closely that I reddened, his gaze burning a hole in me the same way a flame eats through paper. If Mameha noticed, she didn’t remark on it and kept up the conversation flowing as smooth as a river until the Baron cut in.

“Your maids get prettier every time I’m here, Mameha,” he said as he raised his cup to drink. “Especially this one. What’s her name again?”

I looked to Mameha, who nodded back at me, and I bowed my head to address the Baron. “Chiyo, sir.”

“Such magnificent eyes. The color of the ocean,” he remarked, then clicked his tongue in something like disappointment. “She’d be better off a  _ maiko _ than a maid. Such a waste.”

“Thank you, Chiyo,” Mameha told me, signaling that I should leave, as if she could sense my discomfort. Perhaps she shared my feelings, though I knew if she did she would never say a word about it.

I crossed the room and knelt back down beside Tatsumi, where we waited until Mameha and the Baron moved into her bedroom. Her futon had been made up with pristine white sheets this morning before his arrival. It was, after all, the main reason he’d come to see Mameha, I supposed, though I wasn’t sure how to feel about all this business between geisha and  _ danna _ , the services provided for the money given. I was old enough by then to understand roughly what went on between men and women, and there was something so distastefully transactional about it all that I felt queasy kneeling there, listening to the soft sounds coming from the other side of the door.

When the Baron reemerged, he looked disheveled and his vest was buttoned sloppily. I escorted him to the door and handed him his fedora, keeping my eyes lowered all the while in the hopes it would render me invisible. I had no such luck, however, and the Baron paused at the door before leaving to take one last look at me.

“Ah,” he said with a contented sigh, as he peered out the open door down into the street. “You know, sometimes I wonder if having a geisha mistress is worth it… all the kimono, the dance recitals. The vast expense. But now and then-” He paused to put on his hat and smirked. “I’m reminded it always is.”

With that, he was gone, and when I turned back into the apartment, Mameha had stepped out of the bedroom as well, wrapped in a thin cotton robe. After visits from the Baron, I always spent time searching her face to find a hint of some emotion - longing, or sorrow, or anger - but as always, she wore a finely lacquered veneer over her features that never budged. It reminded me of a  _ Noh _ mask, blank and expressionless, and after a moment she must have seen me watching her because she gave me a questioning look.

“I’m going to the bathhouse,” she announced, then nodded at me. “Come along, Chiyo.”

Attending Mameha in the bathhouse usually fell to Tatsumi, so I was surprised by this, but didn’t hesitate. I grabbed a few towels, soap, as well as another clean robe and followed Mameha down the street to the bathhouse at the corner. She undressed, and I followed her over to one of the water spouts in the bathing area, where she knelt to fill a bucket with water. 

Though I had been in her service for years, I always found myself fascinated by the fluid grace with which she moved, as smooth as the water she poured over her head to wet her hair. I knelt by her side and passed her things as she needed them, but the silence between us felt unusually burdensome. Her encounter with the Baron was very much on both of our minds, I could tell, though Mameha didn’t seem nearly as troubled by it as I was.

Finally, she paused as she was scrubbing her leg and glanced over at me. “What is it you want to ask me?”

The question wasn’t impatient or sharp, but caught me off guard nonetheless. “Nothing, ma’am.”

She seemed amused. “I fear you are not a good liar, Chiyo.”

A moment passed in silence before finally I summoned my voice. “Do you… care for the Baron?”

“The Baron is my  _ danna _ ,” she replied easily, reaching down again to fill another small bucket with water. “Of course I care for him.”

“I mean-” I paused to rub my lips together. “I mean as a man. Do you love him?”

“The Baron has always been a good  _ danna _ to me. It’s never served a geisha well to mix love and business, because love easily bleeds over into passion, and passion can lead to jealousy. Even anger. I knew if I was to be successful, love could never factor in. The Baron is a difficult man, at times-” She stopped and hissed softly in pain as she poured water over a blossoming red mark on her forearm. It looked like the beginning of a bruise, and it was not a mystery to either of us where it had come from. “But our arrangement has allowed me to do things I never would have been able to do otherwise, and it’s allowed me to have a successful career. When you have few choices in life, all you can do is make the best one.”

“And it doesn’t bother you, ma’am?” I blurted out without thinking. “That you don’t love him?”

I could see there was something behind Mameha’s eyes as soon as I asked, words that were floating on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t say them. Instead, all she did was rise abruptly and take a step toward the baths, which was my cue to follow her.

I never did get an answer, though I suspected I already knew what the answer would be.


End file.
